Army, Society And State In Search Of A Preferable Model Of Cooperation

The author attempts to define the most relevant formats of civil- military relationships. In order to do it, the author refers to the experience from the USA, Western Europe, Russia and China. Classical Western system of civil-military relationships can be found in the USA and Western Europe and characterized by the strict separation of an army from politics and vice versa. This leads to the situation, when an army has no influence on the spheres of civic power, while also weakening the link between politics and strategy. The author claims that the western approach to the regulation of civilmilitary relationships cannot be implemented outside of the West. Thus, although Russian political system is characterized as a system with weak political institutes, the Russian model demonstrates the ability of state to control military forces. In China, where political elite dominates an army, the system of civil-military relationships is also tacit. Many aspects of the Chinese system with the communist party`s control of an army has much in common with the Soviet experience. However, it does not reduce the significant unique characters of the Chinese system. Thus, the image of warrior in the Confucian culture never found such a great level of popularity, which was relevant for the Christian Western culture. The efficiency of the civil control of army can not be compared, according to some uniform criteria. Such systems and mechanisms in a range of states are not defined in a normative way. In order to assess the informal status of an army in a society, we have to consider such an indirect aspect as the ways of the organization of the military high command system. The author concludes by stating that there is no mechanisms and systems of civil-military relationships, which can be implemented universally. All of them are determined by the country`s history and cannot be understand outside the political context. Besides, all of the considered models have both: dvantages and disadvantages.